March 23rd 2017

swirling····in the girl’s gaze—snow on the closing days········of March·

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I’ve read that sometimes the Japanese poets wrote haiku such that the sounds of the language echoed their subject. That’s rarely possible to translate, but maybe there’s a little of that in the haiku above.

I just wrote you a whole absence-explaining page about Achilles tendon repair, four months of no weight-bearing, a skin infection three weeks into recovery and six months of wound care, and using that “gulag experience’ to address mining issues which are now operating at a fever pitch. I’m finally getting back to the sauna (tonight’s the night! recalling a punchline to a very old joke). I hit post comment and it all disappeared. No time to reproduce it. This is a desiccated version.

That’s cool. I probably didn’t need the hydrated version. :) I did something un-good to my Achilles tendon three years ago or so. It took about two years to get back to normal. Even now it’s easy to aggravate. Good to know you’re still kicking.

I want the many readers who visit from other parts of the world to know that you're welcome in my home. We in the United States, as in any other country, aren't always represented by who governs us. It doesn't matter to me where you're from, what language you speak or what truth you believe in. What matters to me is what's in your heart—and my own heart is what I offer you.

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Patrick Gillespie has self-published one book of Poetry and edited nothing besides. His poetry and criticism has been firmly ignored and hasn't been translated into a single language. Gillespie has never been a Poet Laureate (let alone a Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere), a Literary Fellow of the National Endowment of the Arts, or a Fellow of the Vermont Arts Council. He has received no prizes from the Poetry Foundation (or any other poetry related organizations) and the devil reportedly worries that Hell will freeze over if he ever receives anything like a Genius Grant from the MacArthur Fellows Program. He has been firmly rejected by any and all publishers. No plaques have been or will be dedicated to him or his poetry. Gillespie has received no recognition or prizes of any kind. He holds zero academic credentials or titles. In short, Gillespie is just like you -- of little to no importance to all but a few. You have no reason whatsoever to read him. He wears bottle-cap glasses, works as a Carpenter, has three daughters and a good sense of humor. He is currently replacing all the bad windows in his Vermont home.